‘Little House on the Prairie’ Star Recalls the Moment Michael Landon Personally Cast Her on the Spot
95-year-old Bonnie Bartlett recently stopped by the Boy Meets World recap podcast Pod Meets World, where she discussed her time on the ’90s sitcom, where she starred alongside her real-life husband William Daniels‘ character’s love interest. But Bartlett also opened up about her time on Little House on the Prairie — and specifically how Michael Landon himself cast her as Grace Snider Edwards in 1974.
Before being cast on the beloved series, Bartlett had been taking a break from acting to raise her two sons, Michael and Robert. While she called spending that time with her boys “the best time of [her] life,” she was ultimately ready to get back into acting when Landon approached her.
She explained during the podcast episode, “His agent sent me over to Michael [Landon], and he said, it’s just a general appointment. But as it turned out, he hired me that day. He met me and he said, ‘I’ve got a part for you.’” She added that Landon was a “really nice guy,” and said, “I was so happy to do that show. I loved the part.”
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Bartlett appeared in 26 episodes of the series as Grace, a widow who worked in the post office of Walnut Grove. Grace eventually married Isaiah Edwards (Victor French) and the pair adopted several children. However, she eventually divorced him and left town, also leaving the show.
These days, Bartlett is enjoying a well-deserved retirement with her longtime husband. This June, they will celebrate 74 years of marriage. Last year, she told PEOPLE, “It seems like we’re breaking records. I mean, we both broke a record when we got the Emmys on the same night for the same show. That was a record breaker, nobody had ever done that. Now, it seems like in Hollywood there are no marriages that are 73 years old, so we seem to break records.”
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1970s Fall TV
September 2023
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